A fascinating Gawande New Yorker piece: “The doctor looked closely at the wound. She shined a light on it and in M.’s eyes. Then she walked out of the room and called an ambulance. Only in the Emergency Department at Massachusetts General Hospital, after the doctors started swarming, and one told her she needed surgery now, did M. learn what had happened. She had scratched through her skull during the night””and all the way into her brain.”
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{ 2 comments }
That’s crazy
Very interesting and yet sad. I had a patient once- a young girl that would not stop piking and scratching her skin. All over she had very prominent picker’s nodules and postinflammatory hyperpigmentation. I tried everything, referred her to derm, psych but nothing really helped. They did biopsies and gave meds. Nope. Nada. Anxiety and OCD like behavior topped my list but I wonder now whether she perceived sensation differently. Poor baby.
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